Saturday, 2 February 2019

We're making use of the space that our (part) fitter Steve Wright (no not that one) has managed to blag from Paul to build our traditional back cabin.

Steve has a small workshop/store about ten feet away and the paint shed has power so it makes the build far more efficient, and time is money in this game.

We decided to use Steve mainly for logistical reasons as he's independent from, but sited in, Paul's yard. Alternatives would have meant taking Ernest to a fitter somewhere else on the system for the next stage.

It wasn't until we started discussing our plans with other people that we realised how well known he was (he's a word of mouth operator with no internet presence at all, and he's booked up a year in advance) and how many other boats he's worked on, fitted out and painted. In fact one of my favs, St Tudno was painted by Steve and he'd recently finished the back cabin fit-out on historic NB Effingham. He's also been doing lots of retro work on an RW Davis back cabin to make it a little more solid and robust (which is surprising at their prices! )

I'll do another post about Steve's back cabin build soon but for now we're just pleased that we can take advantage of being in the paint shed and that Steve, as a pro painter, is happy for us to bumble around whilst he's busy. I did consider putting a "not being painted by Steve" sign at the back, just in case any potential clients of his happened to wander by. Whilst I hope I can do an ok job, it's strictly a protecting the steel kind of plan.

So far on the cabin sides we have...

1 coat of super tough Jotun 87

1 coat of higher build Jotun Penguard

Those two went on when we were over in the fabrication shed. And since then